I've never been cool.
I mean, that's obvious, right. But I mean never. When I was in high school all the other kids were listening to Metallica or Led Zepplin, I was listening to Muddy Waters and Bruce Springsteen (and make no mistake, even in NJ it was NOT cool to be listening to Bruce Springsteen in high school then. It's probably way cooler now).
Nirvana was the first band I liked that was sorta cool at the moment. I loved Nirvana. But I couldn't really get down with the whole "grunge" thing. I wanted my rock stars to be bigger than life, not smaller. I didn't want to play therapist to my favorite musicians. Grunge brought "integrity" back to rock music but at the expense of the mystery, the romance-the FUN.
I remember distinctly the first time I heard it on the radio. I was at a light on 14th Street traveling east and I was flipping around the dial when I heard "YOOOOOOO! Tellmewhatyouwantwhatyoureallyreallywant! I'll tellyouwhatIwantwhatIreallyreallywant!!" It was like sticking my finger in an electric socket. What the hell was this? I knew I was SUPPOSED to hate it. But I didn't. Then they invaded. The Spice Girls were like 5 talentless barbie dolls brought to life to make money for some British svengali, but I didn't care. They were having fun. They WERE fun. I loved them. I didn't care that I wasn't supposed to. In fact I loved them BECAUSE I wasn't supposed to. It was a temporary affair, of course, and I stopped caring the moment Ginger left and I wasn't there for their ill-fated Ginger-less "Forever" album (is that title EVER a good idea?) and I could have cared less when they broke up. But it was fun while it lasted.
My friend Lindsay called me to ask if I would go to the Spice Girls reunion show with her. " Why not?" I said. If Ginger is back then so am I.
We got to the arena last night at exactly 8:30 and I read online earlier that the girls went on at 8:30. So I dropped Lindsay off and went to park the car. When I got in the arena the show had started and I looked for a men's room. I literally walked around the entire bottom level in the arena and passed about 30 woman's rooms but no men's room. I asked a security guard if I was insane and she said "You have to go upstairs. We switched them all to women tonight because there are so many girls here tonight."
And she was right. The arena was full of 15-25 screaming girls. Girls who watched the ENTIRE show through their cell phones or cameras, by the way. I'm not kidding. The whole show. The only other guys I saw there, oddly, were two goth guys in black red with lots of mascara and black nail polish. They didn't seem to be with anyone else and I thought the fact that they were there was hysterical.
How many hits do the Spice Girls have? 5 maybe. A few more if you were a real fan. More in the UK I'm sure, but that's not enough to fill out a show. They opened and closed with the same song, "Spice Up Your Life" (my favorite Spice Girls song, thank you very much). They left the stage after every third song to let some dancers do some nonsense. They changed outfits every song. They showed baby pictures and home movies. They talked about their moms. Anything to kill time.
The girls all look great, though. Except Victoria Beckham, Posh Spice, who I think is actually a praying mantis who someone taught to walk upright and go to fashion shows.
I find it funny that the only Spice Girl with any talent is the sorta homely one though. That would be Sporty Spice. She genuinely seemed to be having a good time. She can really sing (sorta) and she's very endearing. Sporty did a few numbers on her own and completely won over the crowd. The goth guys in our section got up and danced for Sporty Spice, which I found even funnier.
Baby Spice got hair extensions and has slimmed down a bit since the girls heyday and looks really, really hot. That's about all she had to offer. She did one solo number that she most sqeaked through and looked over her shoulder and batted her eyelids quite a bit.
Scary Spice has had her Eddie Murphy baby and looks amazing but her solo spot was the strangest of the night. She did a karaoki nightmare version of Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way" while brandishing a whip and crawling around the stage. And she can't sing. At all. It's great.
Ginger Geri Halliwell is still hot and has a genuine charisma. A dull charisma, but charisma nonetheless. She did a version of "It's Raining Men" that had the whole arena of 15-25 year olds singing along. And she looks great in hotpants.
Victoria Beckham's opted to fill her solo slot by strutting around the stage to "Supermodel" pretending to be on her cell phone. No kidding.
After the solo spots, the slide show, the dancers pretending to be bullfighting, the girls changing onstage, the girls talking about how NJ were their valentines, the girls hugging each other and asking us if we were ready for "girl power" and anything else that they could think of to kill time, the girls did a medley of wedding band music ("Celebration", "That's the Way I Like It", "We Are Family"-you get the idea) and finally took their bows. They came back to do the inevitable "Wannabe" and then played "Spice Up Your Life" AGAIN and left the stage as the video screens behind them declared "Mission Accomplished".
"That was the best show EVER!" the girl next to me said to her cell phone.
Not EVER, exactly, but I love that they Spice Girls are back to mildly entertain us for another short period of time. God bless 'em.
I mean, that's obvious, right. But I mean never. When I was in high school all the other kids were listening to Metallica or Led Zepplin, I was listening to Muddy Waters and Bruce Springsteen (and make no mistake, even in NJ it was NOT cool to be listening to Bruce Springsteen in high school then. It's probably way cooler now).
Nirvana was the first band I liked that was sorta cool at the moment. I loved Nirvana. But I couldn't really get down with the whole "grunge" thing. I wanted my rock stars to be bigger than life, not smaller. I didn't want to play therapist to my favorite musicians. Grunge brought "integrity" back to rock music but at the expense of the mystery, the romance-the FUN.
I remember distinctly the first time I heard it on the radio. I was at a light on 14th Street traveling east and I was flipping around the dial when I heard "YOOOOOOO! Tellmewhatyouwantwhatyoureallyreallywant! I'll tellyouwhatIwantwhatIreallyreallywant!!" It was like sticking my finger in an electric socket. What the hell was this? I knew I was SUPPOSED to hate it. But I didn't. Then they invaded. The Spice Girls were like 5 talentless barbie dolls brought to life to make money for some British svengali, but I didn't care. They were having fun. They WERE fun. I loved them. I didn't care that I wasn't supposed to. In fact I loved them BECAUSE I wasn't supposed to. It was a temporary affair, of course, and I stopped caring the moment Ginger left and I wasn't there for their ill-fated Ginger-less "Forever" album (is that title EVER a good idea?) and I could have cared less when they broke up. But it was fun while it lasted.
My friend Lindsay called me to ask if I would go to the Spice Girls reunion show with her. " Why not?" I said. If Ginger is back then so am I.
We got to the arena last night at exactly 8:30 and I read online earlier that the girls went on at 8:30. So I dropped Lindsay off and went to park the car. When I got in the arena the show had started and I looked for a men's room. I literally walked around the entire bottom level in the arena and passed about 30 woman's rooms but no men's room. I asked a security guard if I was insane and she said "You have to go upstairs. We switched them all to women tonight because there are so many girls here tonight."
And she was right. The arena was full of 15-25 screaming girls. Girls who watched the ENTIRE show through their cell phones or cameras, by the way. I'm not kidding. The whole show. The only other guys I saw there, oddly, were two goth guys in black red with lots of mascara and black nail polish. They didn't seem to be with anyone else and I thought the fact that they were there was hysterical.
How many hits do the Spice Girls have? 5 maybe. A few more if you were a real fan. More in the UK I'm sure, but that's not enough to fill out a show. They opened and closed with the same song, "Spice Up Your Life" (my favorite Spice Girls song, thank you very much). They left the stage after every third song to let some dancers do some nonsense. They changed outfits every song. They showed baby pictures and home movies. They talked about their moms. Anything to kill time.
The girls all look great, though. Except Victoria Beckham, Posh Spice, who I think is actually a praying mantis who someone taught to walk upright and go to fashion shows.
I find it funny that the only Spice Girl with any talent is the sorta homely one though. That would be Sporty Spice. She genuinely seemed to be having a good time. She can really sing (sorta) and she's very endearing. Sporty did a few numbers on her own and completely won over the crowd. The goth guys in our section got up and danced for Sporty Spice, which I found even funnier.
Baby Spice got hair extensions and has slimmed down a bit since the girls heyday and looks really, really hot. That's about all she had to offer. She did one solo number that she most sqeaked through and looked over her shoulder and batted her eyelids quite a bit.
Scary Spice has had her Eddie Murphy baby and looks amazing but her solo spot was the strangest of the night. She did a karaoki nightmare version of Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way" while brandishing a whip and crawling around the stage. And she can't sing. At all. It's great.
Ginger Geri Halliwell is still hot and has a genuine charisma. A dull charisma, but charisma nonetheless. She did a version of "It's Raining Men" that had the whole arena of 15-25 year olds singing along. And she looks great in hotpants.
Victoria Beckham's opted to fill her solo slot by strutting around the stage to "Supermodel" pretending to be on her cell phone. No kidding.
After the solo spots, the slide show, the dancers pretending to be bullfighting, the girls changing onstage, the girls talking about how NJ were their valentines, the girls hugging each other and asking us if we were ready for "girl power" and anything else that they could think of to kill time, the girls did a medley of wedding band music ("Celebration", "That's the Way I Like It", "We Are Family"-you get the idea) and finally took their bows. They came back to do the inevitable "Wannabe" and then played "Spice Up Your Life" AGAIN and left the stage as the video screens behind them declared "Mission Accomplished".
"That was the best show EVER!" the girl next to me said to her cell phone.
Not EVER, exactly, but I love that they Spice Girls are back to mildly entertain us for another short period of time. God bless 'em.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
severus:
your sis is sweet, hope she's doing ok.
severus:
i'm... so-so. i printed for you though, that's great! i had a meeting about my website. that went fine too... nice guy who lived in San Fran for 10 years. i have more meetings tomorrow, weekends are like week-days here apparently!